“The girls are even better, working in tandem,” Sharon murmured.
“I never had much respect for mortal women, but I am learning it.”
She did not know the half of it. “Mortal women have their points,”
Jumper agreed, remembering Phanta.
Sharon slapped him, not hard. Somehow she had fathomed his memory. “I can do better than that. Keep your wandering fancy on me.”
“I will try,” he agreed apologetically.
“That’s better. Now let’s join the dance.”
For the chamber had metamorphosed into a gaudily decorated ballroom with colored lights and streamers. Music played from hidden recesses, and the partners were gliding out onto the central floor. The men were handsome in their newly crafted suits, and the girls were devastating in their flowing gowns. Dawn had evidently guided Eris well. Eris and Dawn did the first dance, and it did not seem strange that both were female. They whirled around the floor, their feet stepping intricately, their motions perfectly coordinated. They made a marvelously handsome couple.
Then Pluto and Eve joined the dance, similarly smooth. It was hard to judge which Demon was more stately, or which princess was lovelier. But Jumper saw that Eve was still working on Pluto, now pressing against him, now whirling teasingly away, now catching him with a fleeting kiss. 039-40892_ch01_4P.qxp 7/30/09 12:35 PM Page 253
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She was turning his own ploy against him, as the six angry damsels had rehearsed.
And the others, though considerably less polished, made up for it with enthusiasm. Maeve with Warren Warrior, Wenda with Prince Charming, Olive with the crazy writer Dick Philip, and Phanta with Shepherd. Haughty and Charon flew down from the rafter to whirl together in the air. And of course Sharon led Jumper into the dance. He knew nothing of dancing, but somehow she guided him through it so that he seemed competent. She was so light on her feet she seemed to float in his arms like a wisp of mist. In fact she was floating; her feet did not always touch the floor. Her hair sparkled as she turned, and her eyes held his. It was wonderful.
If he was not yet in abject love, he was being sorely besieged by the emotion. He knew this was not smart on his part, but Sharon was, almost literally, a dream come true. Only a faint warning awareness in the back of his mind restrained him.
Then Eris cut in, and Sharon grudgingly let him go. That spoiled the effect she had been making.
“Uh, why?” Jumper asked, bemused, as the De mon ess guided him gracefully around the floor.
“I have long been alone, and you are a decent male,” she replied candidly. “Too bad you’re not a prince.”
“Not only that, I’m not a man,” he said. “I’m a spider.”
“And I, like all Demons, am not bound by mortal limitations,” she said. “Change forms, if you wish.”
What was her point? He sipped a vial and reverted to his natural form. And found himself opposite another big spider. She had changed with him.
Well, now. Jumper did his thing, which was to jump. She jumped with him, matching his effort perfectly. Soon they were in a marvelous spider dance, while the other dancers fell back to watch.
“Why?” he clicked in spider talk.
“I like you. If you were a prince I would marry you, and not just because it would enable me to escape.”
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Jumper found himself foolishly flattered. Meanwhile, he was absolutely loving this. Eris seemed to understand him in a way no other woman did. Certainly in a way no other spider would. When the dance ended, they changed back to human form. “Thank you,” Jumper said.
“It was a plea
sure.” She faded back, letting Sharon rejoin him. Somehow she impressed him less, not because she was less, but because Eris was more.
There were refreshments. They sat on the sideline, sipping boot rear, laughing at the boots. The scene seemed good. “I wish it could be like this always,” Jumper said.
“Do not be deceived,” Sharon said. “Until you accomplish your mission, nothing is decided. Not with the Demon, not with us.”
“Nothing decided,” he agreed with regret. She was a Demon, a very minor one, but a Demon nevertheless, without a soul, not to be trusted. Was she really interested in him, or was this merely another ploy to fascinate him so that he would have to do her bidding? No matter how many times he asked that question, he was never quite satisfied with the answer.
“But for the moment, we can enjoy ourselves.” She touched his hand. And, oddly, that single little touch was more compelling than much of what else had passed.
Yet Eris lingered in his awareness. The thing about Eris was that he had no reason to doubt her. As far as he knew, he could trust her. Then the music stopped. “It is time for the final negotiation,” Sharon said. “This is the one that counts.”
“Who has to do it?” he asked, fearing the answer.
“You, of course. You have a mission to complete.” Exactly as he had feared.
What choice did he have? “It is my job to complete the mission of repairing the cable connecting the Internet to the Outernet,” he said.
“Demon Pluto wishes to prevent this. De mon ess Eris wishes to escape confinement, which she can do if she marries a prince. So we suggest that if Eris finishes the Prophecy to enable us to complete our mission, 039-40892_ch01_4P.qxp 7/30/09 12:35 PM Page 255
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and this is successful, Dawn will locate a suitable mortal prince to marry her.”
“Agreed,” Eris said.
“Agreed,” Dawn said.
“And if I prevent it, I get Eve,” Pluto said.
“You have it backward,” Eve said. “If the mission is successful, I will marry you.”
“This is the issue,” Pluto said. “You have practiced your nefarious female arts on me, and compelled my fascination with your body, exactly as you planned. I want to win you without having to marry you. Then I will not inherit half your soul, and will not be governed by foolish scruples.”
“Oh, really!” Eve exclaimed. “That’s not my deal!”
“It seems to be the deal he proffers,” Jumper said, realizing that the Demon had found a loophole. “Marriage would severely limit him, so he wants your love without marriage.”
“Exactly,” Pluto said.
“Why should I agree to that?” she demanded.
“To get him committed to a deal,” Jumper said. “Demons are bound by nothing except the deals they make with other Demons. If Pluto has a chance to get you on his terms, he will make the deal.”
Eve pursed her lips, considering. “If we complete our mission, Eris wins, and marries a prince and escapes. I will marry Pluto, and bind him with my half soul, so he will treat me better than he treated Sharon. And you, Jumper, can marry Sharon, making a decent female of her.”
“That seems to be our offer,” Jumper agreed, though he was no longer absolutely sure he wanted to marry Sharon.
“And if you do not complete your mission,” Pluto said, “I will win. None of those three marriages will occur. I will have Eve to do with as I like, and Dawn will have no obligation to Eris, and Sharon will put a ring through Jumper’s nose and make him wish he had remained a spider.”
Jumper winced, knowing that none of the mortal participants were likely to enjoy that situation. “We need some limits on Pluto’s interference with the mission.”
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“I will put five horrendous obstacles in your way,” Pluto said. “Defeat them all, and victory is yours.”
“One obstacle,” Jumper said.
“Four.”
“Two.”
“Three.”
Jumper looked around. Dawn and Eve exchanged a glance, and slowly nodded. This seemed to be a fair compromise.
“Those obstacles will be there before we depart here,” Jumper said
.
“After they are placed, no Demon will interfere. It will be up to us.”
Both Demons nodded.
“It must be possible for us to succeed,” Jumper said. “If we do it correctly.”
“Agreed,” both Demons said together.
“Agreed,” Jumper said.
Then he and the seven girls were back in the Castle Roogna turret. Demons and men were gone. The paper with the completed Prophecy was in Jumper’s hand.
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Not only that. It turned out to be morning— the same morning they had climbed to the turret. Their daylong adventure with the Demons seemed to have taken no time at all.
They compared notes. “Did we wend our way to the De mon ess Eris’s lair, and attend a ball, and make a deal?” Jumper inquired, ner vous about the answer.
“We did dew that,” Wenda agreed. “And I met Prince Charming in the wondrous flesh. He is a divine dancer. I wood like to have stayed a bit longer, like maybee forever.”
“And I sat on a rafter with Charon,” Haughty said. “He likes both me and Hottie. Me for intellect, her for making out. He has long been without a female; it seems that poling a raft to Hades turns off most of them. That sort of thing doesn’t bother a harpy. I can have him all to myself, in what ever aspect. He has centuries of thwarted amour eager to be expressed.”
“And I will be with Pluto,” Eve said, “for better or worse, depending on the success of our mission. Either way, he’s quite a man.”
“So it seems it really happened,” Jumper said.
“It really did,” Phanta agreed. “As did our passing tryst.”
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The others looked at her. “Yew made it with him?” Wenda asked.
“This is knot flirtatious humor?”
“Not,” Phanta agreed. “He saved me from a small black hole. I was overcome by the moment.”
“So that’s the secret,” Maeve said. “Small black holes.”
“We must be sure to make note of that,” Olive said.
“Noted,” Haughty agreed.
The group looked as if it was making an effort to laugh, but it was unsuccessful.
“Meanwhile, we have three horrendous obstacles to overcome,”
Jumper said. “Or Eve and I will be enslaved by Demons.”
“What of the rest of us?” Olive asked. “I don’t remember us being mentioned in that Demon bet.”
A pause circled around. “I don’t think you were,” Dawn said. “Not in the Demon negotiations. But you’re definitely part of the mission.”
“Surely so,” Olive agreed. “But what is our fate if it succeeds— or fails?”
“My guess is that success will grant you permanent status as you are now,” Eve said. “Full body, absence of stork, better control of imaginary friends, of ghostly form, and of harpy personality.”
“And what of failure?” Phanta asked grimly.
“The loss of those things. Reversion to your prior status. Your men might not appreciate that.”
“But the stork will catch me!” Maeve wailed.
“That’s hardly as bad as what will catch us, ” Eve said. “I want to be Pluto’s wife, not his plaything.”
Jumper could only agree. He now knew enough of Demons to be assured that he needed the protection of half a soul in Sharon. She could be divine, but without that she would be, well, demonic. Then he realized that he suffered from another complication. He had met the Dwarf De mon ess Eris, and danced with her. He hardly knew her, but somehow that limited interaction had given him a foolish crush on her.
But it was Sharon who would claim him.
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“So we simply must knot fail,” Wenda said.
With that they heartily agreed.
“What of the Prophecy?” Haughty asked.
Jumper brought out the parchment, and discovered that it now had a continuation. “Go find the Cable, if you are able,” he read. “You’ll find it when, in the Ogre Fen.”
“That almost makes sense,” Dawn said. “We have to repair the broken cable.”
“No it doesn’t,” Eve said. “The cable isn’t in the Ogre-fen-Ogre Fen. It’s between worlds.”
“And what’s this business about when?” Olive asked. “It should be where.”
“That wood knot rhyme,” Wenda pointed out.
“So this d**mn thing is just as confusingly obscure as it has been all along,” Haughty said, disgusted.
“True to form,” Jumper agreed.
“What about the rest of it?” Phanta asked.
Jumper focused on the parchment. “Let no maiden fair, Yield to despair.”
“Who is it talking about?” Maeve demanded. “It’s okay for ugly girls to give up?”
“You are all fair,” Jumper said quickly.
“Oh?” Maeve asked. “Would you like to make out with any of the rest of us?”
“Yes. Any of you could have seduced me, in Phanta’s place, after that black hole scare. You still could, if you really tried. You’re all attractive, and you have all worked to be more so— the princesses especially. That’s why Eve was able to win the interest of Pluto.”
There was half a pause. “Noted,” Haughty said. “So it is talking about us. We must not give up.”
“What else is in the Prophecy?” Dawn asked.
Jumper read the last of it. “It will be nice, If you can splice.”
“Splice the cable,” Haughty said. “Of course that will be nice. That’s our mission. Why is it saying the obvious?”
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“Because it is unlikely to be obvious in practice,” Eve said. “We knew this is not going to be easy. It has to be a Challenge whose outcome is uncertain, to be a fair Demon bet.”
“And it surely is that,” Jumper concluded.
They set out forthwith, fetching their bicycles and riding an enchanted path northward, because the Prophecy indicated that their first challenge was far north, at the Ogre-fen-Ogre Fen. The path gradually curved to the right. “It’s veering east,” Eve noted. She stopped, got off her bike, and touched the path with one hand. “Oh— it’s a detour. Complication of weather ahead, so it’s taking a scenic route.”
“Paths can do that?” Jumper asked, surprised.
“Magic paths can. They protect travelers not only by shielding them from hostile creatures, but by routing them compatibly. Don’t be concerned; it will get us there.”
The scenic route brought them to a lovely scene: a great valley with a winsome river winding lazily through it, with pretty foliage along its banks. “The Kiss Mee River,” Eve said. “This should be fun.”
They camped for the night at a shelter by the river. Brown plants grew beside it. Jumper and Dawn picked the pointed fruit of one. It smelled tasty, so they ate it. It was chocolate. They turned to each other and kissed. That surprised Jumper, because he had not had any such thing in mind.
“Well,” Dawn said. “You are growing bolder.”
“I didn’t do that,” he protested. “You did.”
Wenda came up. “Yew both did,” she said. “Those are chocolate kisses. They grow all along the Kiss Mee River, of course.”
Dawn laughed. “That’s one on me! My sister would have recognized their nature instantly.” She glanced sidelong at Jumper. “Shall we have another?”
“Uh, no,” he said quickly, not sure what it might lead to.
“If yew want to make smarter decisions, try that plant,” Wenda suggested, indicating one. “That is sage; it will make yew wise.”
“Thank you, no,” Jumper said, uncertain whether she was teasing him. Unfortunately there was
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for their tastes, or that didn’t threaten to make them more affectionate than they cared to be. That was the nature of the Kiss Mee valley. It was a region of love, not war.
Wenda dug up a sweet potato. “If we cook this, it will knot actually bee too sweet or friendly,” she said.
“Then we’ll have to make a fire, and find a pan,” Dawn said. But they found neither. “Can one of your friends help?” Jumper asked Olive without much hope.
“Certainly.” A ten-year-old girl appeared beside her. She looked ordinary, but looked around, and became much sweeter. “Hello, Auspice,”
Olive said.
“Hello, Olive,” the girl replied sweetly.
“Auspice is the daughter of Bink and Chameleon, after they were rejuvenated,” Olive explained. “They were eighty-one and seventy-six, respectively, when they
were youthened to
twenty-one and sixteen,
eleven years ago.”
“Sixty years removed!” Jumper exclaimed.
“So they could be young again,” Dawn agreed. “Hello, Auspice.”
“Hello, great niece Dawn,” the girl replied.
“What?” Jumper asked.
Dawn laughed. “Rejuvenation can do odd things. Eve and I are Bink and Chameleon’s great-grandchildren, so Auspice is our great aunt. Her talent is to change her nature involuntarily to match her surroundings in mood, attitude, appearance and abilities. That’s why she became so sweet.”
“That’s nice,” Jumper said. “But how does this help us cook a tuber?”
Auspice clapped her hands with girlish delight. “That’s easy! I brought my cook book.”
“But—”
The girl brought out a thick book she had somehow concealed on her person. She set it on the ground. “Where is your potato?” she asked. Wenda gave it to her. Auspice set it on top of the book. There was a sizzle and the sweet potato softened visibly. It was cooking!